This Is My Job: Test Pilot

Will she fly? It's the question that haunts every airplane designer and builder. When it's time to make the first flight of a new competition aerobatic plane, or an experimental two-seat sport jet, or a homebuilt biplane fresh out of somebody's garage, test pilot Len Fox is the guy to call. Schooled in Navy F/A-18s and A-4s, Fox has tested 54 types of planes in his career. Every time he lines up on the runway for takeoff, there's potential for things to go seriously wrong. "It's never a matter of battling fear," he says, "but of respecting the physics and minimizing the risk."